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Cold and chilly; but those stately hills, which rise higher and higher on each side the river, covered with forests of oak now brilliant in their golden-brown array beneath the autumnal heaven, and those prairies with their infinite stretches of view, afford a spectacle forever changing and forever beautiful. And then all is so young, so new, all as yet virgin soil! Here and there, at the foot of the hills, on the banks of the river, has the settler built his little log-house, plowed up a little field in which he has now just reaped his maize. The air is gray, but altogether calm. We proceed very leisurely, because the water is low at this time of the year, and has many shallows; at times it is narrow, and then again it is of great width, dotted over with many islands, both large and small. These islands are full of wild vines, which have thrown themselves in festoons among the trees, now for the most part leafless, though the wild vines are yet green.

We are sailing between Wisconsin on the right and Iowa on the left. We have just passed the mouth of the Wisconsin River, by which Father Marquette entered the Mississippi. How well I understand his feelings on the discovery of the Great River! I feel myself here, two hundred years later, almost as happy as he was, because I too am alone, and am on a journey of discovery, although of another kind. The Wisconsin flows into the Mississippi between shores overgrown with wood, and presents a beautiful idyllian scene.

We shall to-morrow enter upon a wilder region and among the Indians, If the weather is only not too cold!

Evening. It seems as if it would clear up; the sun has set and the moon risen, and the moon seems to dissipate the clouds. At sunset the Menomonie put to land to take in fuel. It was on the Iowa bank of the river. I went on shore with Mr. Sibley. A newly-erected log-house stood at the foot of the hill, about fifty paces from the river; we went into the house, and were met by a handsome young wife, with a nice little plump lad, a baby, in her arms; her husband was out in the forest. They had been at the place merely a few months, but were satisfied, and hopeful of doing well there. Two fat cows with bells were grazing in the meadow, without any tether. Every thing within the house was neat and in order, and indicated a degree of comfort. I saw some books on a shelf; these were the Bible, prayer-books, and American reading-books, containing selections from English and American literature, both verse and prose. The young wife talked sensibly and calmly about their life and condition as settlers in the West. When we left the house, and I saw her standing in the door-way with her beautiful child in her arms, she presented a picture in the soft glow of the Western heaven, a lovely picture of the new life of the West.

That young, strong, earnest mother, with her child on her arm, that little dwelling, protected by the husband, who cherished in himself the noblest treasures of thought and of love --behold in these the germ which, by degrees, will occupy the wilderness, and cause it to blossom as the rose.

16th. A glorious morning, as warm as summer! It rained in the night, but cleared up in the morning; those dense, dark masses of cloud were penetrated, rent asunder by the flashing sunbeams; and bold, abrupt shadows, and heavenly lights played among the yet bolder, more   [p. 16]   craggy, and more picturesque hills. What an animated scene it was! and I was once more alone with America, with my beloved, my great and beautiful sister, with the sibyl at whose knee I sat listening and glancing up to her with looks full of love. Oh what did she not communicate to me that day, that morning full of inspiration, as amid her tears she drank in the heavenly light, and flung those dark shadows, like a veil, back from her countenance, that it might be only the more fully illumined by the Divine light! Never shall I forget that morning!

They came again and again, during the morning, those dark clouds, spreading night over those deep abysses; but again they yielded, again they gave place to the sun, which finally prevailed, alone, triumphant, and shone over the Mississippi and its world in the most beautiful summer splendor; and the inner light in my soul conversed with the outward light. It was glorious!

The further we advanced, the more strangely and fantastically were the cliffs on the shore splintered and riven, representing the most astonishing imagery. Half way up, probably four or five hundred feet above the river, these hills were covered with wood now golden with the hue of autumn, and above that, rising, as if directly out of it, naked, ruin-like crags, of rich red brown, representing fortifications, towers, half-demolished walls, as of ancient, magnificent strongholds and castles. The castle ruins of the Rhine are small things in comparison with these gigantic remains of primeval ages; when men were not, but the Titans of primeval nature, Megatheriums, Mastodons, and Ichthyosaurians rose up from the waters, and wandered alone over the earth.

It was difficult to persuade one's self that many of these bold pyramids and broken temple-façades had not really been the work of human hands, so symmetrical, so architectural were these colossal erections. I saw in two places human dwellings, built upon a height; they looked like   [p. 17]   birds'-nests upon a lofty roof; but I was glad to see them, because they predicted that this magnificent region will soon have inhabitants, and this temple of nature worshipers in thankful and intelligent human hearts. The country on the other side of these precipitous crags is highland, glorious country, bordering the prairie-land--land for many millions of human beings! Americans will build upon these hills beautiful, hospitable homes, and will here labor, pray, love, and enjoy. An ennobled humanity will live upon these heights.

Below, in the river, at the feet of the hill-giants, the little green islands become more and more numerous. All were of the same character; all were lovely islands, all one tangle of wild vine. The wild grapes are small and sour, but are said to become sweet after they have been frosted. It is extraordinary that the wild vine is every where indigenous to America. America is of a truth Vineland, I have heard the prophecy of a time and a land where every man shall sit under his own vine, and none shall make him afraid; when the wolf and the lamb shall sport together, and the desert shall blossom as the rose, and all in the name of the Prince of Peace.

These hills, spite of their varieties of form and of their ruin-like crags, have a general resemblance; they are nearly all of the same height, not exceeding eight or nine hundred feet. Good republicans, every one of them!

Last evening, just at sunset, I saw the first trace of the Indians in an Indian grave. It was a chest of bark laid upon a couple of planks supported by four posts, standing underneath a tree golden with autumnal tints. It is thus that the Indians dispose of their dead, till the flesh is dried off the bones, when these are interred either in the earth or in caves, with funeral rites, dances, and songs. Thus a coffin beneath an autumnal tree, in the light of the pale evening sun, was the first token which I perceived of this poor, decaying people.

Soon after we saw Indian huts on the banks of the river. They are called by themselves "tepees" (dwellings), and by the English "lodges;" they resemble a tent in form, and are covered with buffalo hides, which are wrapped round long stakes, planted in the ground in a circle, and united at the top, where the smoke passes out through an opening something like our Laplander's huts, only on a larger scale. There is a low opening in the form of a door to each hut, and over which a piece of buffalo hide can be let down at pleasure. I saw through the open doors the fire burning on the floor in many of the huts; it had a pleasant, kindly appearance. Little savage children were leaping about the shore. It was the most beautiful moonlight evening.

17th. Sunshiny, but cold. We have Indian territory through the whole of our course on the right; it is the territory of Minnesota, and we now see Indians encamped on the banks in larger or smaller numbers. The men, standing or walking, wrapped in their red or yellow-gray blankets; the women, busied at the fires either within or without the tents, or carrying their children on their backs in the yellow blankets in which they themselves are wrapped. All are bareheaded, with their black locks hanging down like horses' tails, or sometimes plaited. A great number of children, boys especially, leap about shouting on the shores. We proceeded very slowly, and stuck fast on the shallows continually as we wound among the islands. In the mean time, little canoes of Indians glided quickly, and, as it were, shyly hither and thither along the shores and the islands, the people seeming to be looking for something among the bushes. They appeared, for the most part, to be women in the boats; but it is not easy to distinguish a man from a woman, as they sit there wrapped in their blankets, with their bare, unkemped hair. They were seeking for wild berries and herbs, which they collect among the bushes. How savage and   [p. 19]   like wild beasts they looked! And yet it is very entertaining to see human beings so unlike the people one sees every day, so unlike our own selves!

The Indians we see here are of the Sioux or Dacotah nation, still one of the most powerful tribes in the country, and who, together with the Chippewas, inhabit the district around the springs of the Mississippi (Minnesota). Each nation is said to amount to twenty-five thousand souls. The two tribes live in hostility with each other; but have lately held, after some bloody encounters, a peace congress at Fort Snelling, where the American authorities compelled these vengeful people, although unwillingly, to offer each other the hand of reconciliation.

Mr. Sibley, who has lived many years among the Sioux, participating in their hunting and their daily life, has related to me many characteristic traits of this people's life and disposition. There is a certain grandeur about them, but it is founded on immense pride; and their passion for revenge is carried to a savage and cruel extreme. Mr. Sibley is also very fond of the Indians, and is said to be a very great favorite with them. Sometimes, when we sail past Indian villages, he utters a kind of wild cry, which receives an exulting response from the shore.

Sometimes we see a little log-house, with two or three Indian lodges beside it. Such houses belong to half-blood Indians, that is to say, one whose father was a while man and mother an Indian, and these are his relations by the mother's side, or the relatives of his Indian wife, who have come to dwell near him. He is commonly engaged in trade, and is a link between the Indian and European.

We have now also some Indians on board, a family of the Winnebagoes, husband, wife, and daughter, a young girl of seventeen, and two young warriors of the Sioux tribe, adorned with fine feathers, and painted with red and yellow, and all colors, I fancy, so that they are splendid. They remain on the upper deck, where I also remain, on   [p. 20]   account of the view being so much more extensive. The Winnebago man is also painted, and lies on deck, generally on his stomach, propped on his elbows, and wrapped in his blanket. The wife looks old and worn out, but is cheerful and talkative. The girl is tall and good-looking, but has heavy features, and broad, round shoulders; she is very shy, and turns away if any one looks at her. I saw the three have their dinner: they took a piece of dark-colored meat, which I supposed to have been smoke-dried, out of a bag, and alternately tore a piece from it with their teeth. I offered them cakes and fruit, which I had with me; the wife laughed, and almost snatched them from me. They were well pleased to receive them, but expressed no thanks. The young Sioux warriors look like some kind of great cock. They strut about now and then, and look proud, and then they squat themselves down on their hams, like apes, and chatter away as volubly as any two old gossips ever did. All the men have noses like a hawk's bill, and the corners of their mouths are drawn down, which gives a disagreeable, scornful expression to the countenance. Nothing, however, about them has struck me so much as their eyes, which have a certain hard, inhuman expression. They seem to me like those of wild beasts, cold, clear, with a steady, hard, and almost cruel glance. One could fancy that they had caught sight of some object, some prey a long way off in the forest. The glance is not deficient in intelligence or acuteness, but it is deficient in feeling. There is an immense difference between their eyes and those of the negroes. The former are a cold day, the latter a warm night.

Last night we passed through Lake Pepin in the moonlight. It is an extension of the Mississippi, large enough to constitute a lake, surrounded by magnificent hills, which seem to inclose it with their almost perpendicular cliffs, one among which is particularly prominent, and is called Wenona's Cliff, from a young Indian girl who here sang   [p. 21]   her death-song and then threw herself into the waters below, preferring death to marriage with a young man whom she did not love.

Late last evening I noticed a tall Indian who was standing with his arms crossed, wrapped in his blanket, under a large tree. He stood as immovable as if he had grown into the tree against the boll of which he leaned. He looked very stately. All at once he gave a leap forward, and, uttering a shrill cry, bounded down to the shore; and then I saw, at no great distance, an encampment of about twenty huts in the forest near the river, where fires were burning, and there seemed to be a throng of people. Along the shore lay a considerable number of small canoes, and I imagined that the warning cry of the man had reference to these, for when our steamer swung past the place, for it was at a bend of the river where the camp stood, it occasioned a sort of earthquake to those little boats, which were hurled like nut-shells one against another, and on toward the shore. The people who were seated in the boats leaped upon the shore, others came running from the huts down to the boats; the whole encampment was in motion; there was a yelling and a barking both of men and dogs, and shrill cries which were heard long after the Menomonie had shot past on her foaming career. The camp, with its fires, its huts, and its people, was a most wild and animated scene.

At another place, during the day, we saw a large, pale red stone standing on a plain near the river. I was told that this stone, and all large stones of this kind, are regarded as sacred by the Indians, who swear by them, and around which they hold their councils, believing that they are the abiding-place of a divinity.

In the afternoon we shall reach St. Paul's, the goal of our journey, and the most northern town on the Mississippi. I am sorry to reach it so soon; I should have liked this voyage up the Mississippi to have lasted eight days   [p. 22]   at least. It amuses and interests me indescribably. These new shores, so new in every way, with their perpetually varying scenes; that wild people, with their camps, their fires, boats, their peculiar manners and cries--it is a continual refreshment to me. And to this must be added that I am able to enjoy it in peace and freedom, from the excellent arrangement of the American steam-boats for their passengers. They are commonly three-decked--the middle deck being principally occupied by the passengers who like to be comfortable. Round this deck runs a broad gallery or piazza, roofed in by the upper deck, within which are ranged the passengers' cabins, side by side, all round the vessel. Each cabin has a door, in which is a window opening into the gallery, so that one can either enter the gallery this way, or enjoy the scenery of the shore from the cabin itself; it has also another door, which opens into the saloon. The saloon aft is always appropriated to the ladies, and around this are their cabins; the second great saloon also, used for meals, is the assembling-place of the gentlemen. Each little apartment, called a state-room, has commonly two berths in it, the one above the other; but if the steamer is not much crowded, one can easily obtain a cabin entirely to one's self. These apartments are always painted white, and are neat, light, and charming; one could remain in them for days with the utmost pleasure. The table is generally well and amply supplied; and the fares, comparatively speaking, are low. Thus, for instance, I pay for the voyage from Galena to St. Paul's only six dollars, which seems to me quite too little in comparison with all the good things that I enjoy. I have a charming little "state-room" to myself, and the few upper-class passengers are not of the catechising order. One of them, Mr. Sibley, is a clever, kind man, and extremely interesting to me from his knowledge of the people of this region, and their circumstances. There are also some emigrant families who are on their way to   [p. 23]   settle on the banks of the River St. Croix and Stillwater, who do not belong to what are called the "better class," although they rank with such--a couple of ladies who smoke meerschaum-pipes now and then--and, in particular, there are two half-grown girls, who are considerably in my way sometimes--especially one of them, a tall, awkward girl in a fiery-red, brick-colored dress, with fiery-red hair as rough as a besom, and eyes that squint, and who, when she comes out, sets herself to stare at me with her arms crossed, her mouth and eyes wide open, as if I were some strange Scandinavian animal, and every now and then she rushes up to me with some unnecessary, witless question. I regard these girls as belonging to--the mythological monsters of the Great West, as daughters of its giants, and did not scruple to cut them rather short!

Ah! people may come to this hemisphere as democratic as they will, but when they have traveled about a little they will become aristocratic to a certain extent. To a certain extent --but beyond that I shall never go, even though the daughters of the giants become so numerous as to shut out my view. And this brick-colored, foolhardy girl would--of this I am certain--with a few kind and intelligent words, assume a different mode of behavior, and, if I were to be any length of time with her, she and I should become good friends. And there is in one of these emigrant families an old grandmother, and yet not so very old after all, who is so full of anxiety, so quietly active, and so thoughtful for every one who belongs to her, and who is evidently so kind and motherly in disposition, that one must willingly take in good part all her questions and her ignorance of geography, if one has any thing good in one's self. And that one has not when one gets out of temper with the manners of the giants' daughter, and wills to be at peace.

The captain of the steamer, Mr. Smith, is an extremely agreeable and polite man, who is my cavalier on board, and in whose vessel the utmost order prevails.

We see no longer any traces of European cultivation on shore, nothing but Indian huts and encampments. The shores have become flatter since we left Lake Pepin, and the scenery tamer.